Polio eradication campaigner Ramesh Ferris, who has lived with the paralyzing nervous system disease since was just six months old, is hoping to see the country – and global eradication efforts — soon reach a major milestone. If no new cases of polio infection are reported in the country by Jan. 13, it will allow the World Health Organization, the United Nations’ public health arm, to declare the disease officially eradicated from its Southeast Asia zone, which includes 11 countries. (click below to read more)
The last such polio case in the region was reported in India’s West Bengal state on Jan. 13, 2011. For a zone to be certified polio-free, all the countries in that group must complete three years without a single new infection caused by the wild polio virus.
An announcement confirming this status is expected to take place in March, after laboratory tests of stool samples of recently paralyzed children rule out wild polio infection, said Lokesh Gupta, manager of the Rotary International’s India polio eradication campaign. The social service organization has been working closely with the health ministry and the United Nations on polio vaccine efforts in India.
The polio virus spreads primarily through contaminated food and water, and affects the nervous system, leading to irreversible paralysis in about one out of 200 cases, according to the WHO. In about 5% to 10% of paralysis cases, patients die due to the inability to even breathe. India, which has been battling polio for about 35 years through the use of an oral vaccine, is regarded as success story in the global fight to wipe out the disease, to which young children are particularly vulnerable.
It then took a more aggressive approach, and ramped up its focus on high-risk groups. The program now covers 170 million children in two rounds of vaccination a year. Just three years later, the WHO took India’s name off the list of polio-endemic countries. In 2012, there were only 223 polio cases worldwide, down from 350,000 in 1988.
For the 34-year-old Mr. Ferris, India’s completion of three years without polio will have enormous personal significance. He contracted polio in the southern Indian city of Coimbatore when he was an infant – around the time India first began promoting the use of the oral polio vaccine that has been the mainstay of eradication efforts.
By the time he was a year old, and unable to walk, his impoverished birth mother decided to give him up for adoption.
Mr. Ferris then grew up in Canada where he learned to walk with the help of braces and crutches, and also underwent numerous surgeries. But he also suffered mockery and derision over his condition, which was rarely seen there. Canada sharply reduced cases of polio by the 1970s, and was declared polio-free along with the rest of the WHO’s Americas region in 1994.
Mr. Ferris says his classmates used to bully him and call him names. “They [children] would kick my crutches and push me on the ground. It was very hurtful,” he recalled.
But it was a visit to India – his first since his adoption – that led him to begin actively campaigning for the global eradication of polio. That was in 2002, when he flew to India to meet Lakshmi, his biological mother.
During his visit, he saw a middle-aged polio-affected man crawling on the ground using rubber pieces to pad his knees and sandals covering his palms. “This was absolutely appalling and horrific,” said Mr. Ferris.
“That was my eye-opening experience in terms of what the reality of life is like for many polio survivors in India and around the world,” he said.
Mr. Ferris has since campaigned in Canada for global polio eradication, but also in other countries where the disease still prevails.
In 2008, he cycled across Canada – on a three-wheeled cycle that allows riders to pedal using their hands rather than their legs. He covered a distance of around 4,437 miles to raise awareness about the importance of continued polio vaccination.
Mr. Ferris, who works in the department of health and social services in the government of Yukon, a Canadian territory, got married in 2012. His wife, Dagmar Ferris, a teacher, accompanied him to Coimbatore ahead of India’s third anniversary of being polio-free.
Public health experts have expressed the hope that India can replicate its polio success with other childhood diseases — about 1.4 million children under the age of five died in 2012 from preventable diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea and malnutrition, according to Unicef, the UN’s child welfare agency.
India’s vast population and poor hygiene conditions, due to the lack of sanitation and clean water, were major impediments in containing the polio virus. But extensive awareness campaigns and regular immunization drives ultimately paid off.
“To have India have no new cases of polio on January 13 is truly one of the greatest public health achievements of all time,” said Mr. Ferris.
But, warns Mr. Ferris, India should not become complacent. Health experts say that polio can always recur in a polio-free country as long as it remains endemic in some part of the world. According to the WHO, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria remain in that category.
“We have to continue the great work we are doing,” said Mr. Ferris.
No comments:
Post a Comment